News
Malaysia Update Conference 2016: Najib’s Malaysia — A Crisis of Confidence?
The past year in Malaysia has been as tumultuous as any in sixty years of independence. At its epicentre has been the sovereign wealth fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), with debts of around...
ASEAN's South China Sea ulcer
The just concluded meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers in Vientiane, Lao PDR, looked like it was going to be a high profile failure. The fear was that the meeting would repeat the 2012 experience of...
Lebanon's fragile stability
Image: Flickr/World Bank/Dominic Chavez I arrived in Lebanon in early June this year and was immediately struck by the calm mood of the people. Since 2015 fear of an ISIS invasion had receded, in...
As turmoil sparks the largest protests in years, where is Zimbabwe headed?
Image: AP photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi Things are not going well in Zimbabwe. Although its economy experienced some recovery in the early part of the 2010s, after nearly a decade of hyperinflation...
The fight inside China over the South China Sea
With a decision from an international ad hoc tribunal tasked with reviewing China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea looming, regional tensions are running high. A key problem is that no nation...
Thailand must end trafficking of all migrant workers
On 6 June Thailand’s Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha gave a 35-minute speech commemorating the annual Stop Human Trafficking Day in Bangkok. He was also shown on state media donating 3,000...
Brexit serves as a warning to ASEAN
The lesson from the UK-EU split should not be one of smugness, but that regional cooperation only exists thanks to citizens’ permission. For decades the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN...
Strategic partnerships: Helping or hindering security?
Strategic partnerships are becoming central to the management of international security in the Asia-Pacific region. All the major powers and many of the minor ones have entered into multiple...
The morning after: Australia, Japan, and the submarine deal that wasn't
Barely had the visiting Japanese submarine, JS Hakuryu, departed Sydney Harbour on 26 April than Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced to the media that Australia’s future submarines...
University impact requires criticism, rigour, bravery, education
Illustration: Eric Lobbecke The call for universities and academics to ‘have impact’ is important and legitimate, and there is a strong narrative about how in the social sciences they have failed to...
